Chapter 249 - Craft guild (Patreon)

"Your weapon should work against The First One as well if we're lucky. Most of the skills need at least a bit of mana for activation and upkeep, so disrupting the connection he has to other ants should stop him from getting their mana, vitality, and from ordering them around," Myrra says.

"Only if we're able to keep him stabbed with it. How big is The First One?" I ask.

"His head is around a similar height to mine. His body is covered in pitch black matte plating. Unlike other ants, he doesn't shine at all. We don't know what skills he has, but just the raw strength and vitality he was getting made it near impossible to deal with him."

"It's fine, I already have a plan," I tell her.

"You are quick, feral one. What is it?"

When I explain it to her, she starts talking about things like common sense, calling me dumb, and such stuff. We just have a replay of our conversation when I told her about my plan to kill the Living Tree.

In the end, she sighs, "I'm not even surprised, and somehow this sounds a bit more reasonable than your plan against the Living Tree. For now, prepare for it, and I will set some as well. The matriarch left some things to us that should help us defend here in Virelia."

"What about [Kin Control]? Is it gone now that the matriarch died?"

Her face shows surprise. "First, I learn that the matriarch liked to mess around pretending to be her granddaughter and having fun bullying us lynthari, then I learn about [Kin Control], and now even that you probably knew it all before me. Tell me, feral one, did she like you so much because you often feel like lynthari in human skin? Is it because of your bearing? Are you also a Champion candidate?" Each word she says moves her closer to me.

"It's not my fault, Myrra, it's you guys that keep annoying and bullying me." I defend myself.

"Sure," she sighs, takes a few steps back, and sits on the windowsill of one of the big circular windows. "[Kin Control] is gone, but I don't think she even used it lately. She did it so the skill loses its hold over us as soon as possible and so the ants won't be able to take it over and control us. Now that the matriarch is dead, it should take only a few days."

"So from some point of view, the matriarch was the weakness of the lynthari?"

"If you want to think about it that way, feral one, sure, but at the same time, she could do the same to ants, especially from within the city, so they didn't dare to attack, but that's where your friends step in."

She stops looking outside. "Before you came here, I spent a lot of time thinking if I should kill your friends, feral one. The last thing we want is for them to fall into the hands of the Colony again."

Myrra giggles, her golden eyes shining, "Some lynthari even told me to lure you here and deal with your friends while keeping you busy."

"But?"

"But they don't know you, feral one." she continues, her eyes on me. "Ever since you entered the room, I felt that thing you keep feeding with your power and that you plan to use against the Colony. I feel your connection towards the tower, and I know you can return there quickly. And if we fail, you could end up being a bigger problem than the Calamity."

"A wise choice you told them to fuck off, right?"

She laughs again. "Yes, I did. But tell me and be honest. Would you kill me if I allowed for it to happen and your friend died?"

"Yes."

"Oh, that absolute certainty of yours. It slightly stings that you said it without hesitation, but I also like it. I like it a lot."

"I will be going then."

When I reach the door, she stops me. "Feral one, I did think about killing you as well and your friends. For indirectly causing her death. For her sending us to the colony to stop the First One from taking their skills. Maybe she would be alive if I stayed here with the enforcers."

"Maybe," I pause.

"Yes, maybe. I will see you later, then," she says.

I leave after that, and unsurprisingly, half of the twelve enforcers, the strongest lynthari, stand there. Just in case, ready to run in and protect their new matriarch.

They only greet me shortly as I pass by them, and Myrra's bodyguard leads me towards the exit.

"Please be careful," he says before I leave him behind.

Once again, I use kinetic energy to push myself high into the air, and this time, I fly to check on the old enchanter, the man called Cael.

The first thing Cael asks me about is if the weapon he and other enchanters helped me work on did well. The second question is if I could help him get access to what remains of the Living Tree to examine it for materials. Only his third question is about the attack on the city and the matriarch's death.

Are all craftspeople like that?

I answer his questions and spend the rest of the day discussing my plans. At some point, just the two of us are not enough, and he leads us to the Craft Guild.

The Craft Guild is one of the biggest buildings in the city and the most luxurious, clearly showing how required their work is. We get in easily, and I find out that Cael used to be vice guild master of the Craft Guild.

Of course.

"Young Sir, please! Look at this enchantment of mine!"

"Mister, could you explain to me how this works?"

"It's him! The young man that inscribed that stone!"

"The guild master wanted him as vice guild master…"

A bunch of men and women keep annoying us as we pass through the room, and I'm surprised how quickly the information on my and Cael's presence spread.

It's also a bit awkward how they keep looking at me like I just invented chocolate or something. As if I'm some kind of celebrity.

How would they look at me if I told them it's mostly my high-level skills, massive mana, and amount of money that allows me to do testing that would be impossible even for most mid-guilds? Especially all wasted on a single person.

Actually, should I tell them? It would be fun to watch.

Instead, we eventually get rid of these people and reach the highest floor of the building where all high-positioned enchanters reside when they are here and where the guild master is.

Inside the circular room, six men already impatiently wait. Cael sent them a message before we even arrived.

I stop in front of the door after feeling their presences with my skill.

For a while, I examine the inscriptions that are all around me. On the door, in the walls, on the ceiling, inside small mana stones hidden inside the floor and connected through web-like pathways. There is so much of it, and just examining them takes my mind off useless stuff.

"They might be getting impatient," Cael says carefully after a few minutes.

I sigh and gesture to an employee nearby, and he opens the door after bowing.

"Master Gwyn, it's such an honor to have you here!" immediately, one of the men attacks me.

"I'm a massive fan of the work you did!" another one joins the combined attack.

"Theo, Davi, please, leave it for later and do not annoy him. You are old enough to have some self-control," Cael defends me.

"That's easy for you to say. You are keeping him for yourself! You should share..."

"Davi! That's rude to say in front of our guest!" finally, the guild master of the Craft Guild reacts.

He is even older than Cael and has long gray hair and an impressive beard. He is the perfect image of an old wise archmage you would see in children's stories. It's to the point even a cosplayer wouldn't do a better job.

“Allow me to welcome you here, Mister Gwyn. Cael told me about the thing you work on, and I was able to find some help. In a few minutes, a few more people will be coming. They started immediately after they heard about it.”

I can only stare at him. For some time, I was thinking about what I should do to pay them back for all the help they offered me while working on inscriptions that altered the functionality of my epic weapons a bit and on the arcanadium shaft that combined them.

But this?

Seeing their faces, hearing them gulp to the point where some of them are close to drooling every time I step closer to a few empty mana stones on the table.

Paying them back? Hell no, it looks like I'm not using them enough, seeing their greedy eyes. It's to the point where I start having suspicions that I'm the one being taken advantage of.

The door opens and a few more men rush in, excitedly asking if we already started.

“I'm too busy, so let's start. If someone else joins later, you can inform them,” I take a few steps towards the table in the middle and pull out the epic mana stone Sophie bought for me for 5000 shards and put it on the table, of mid or upper epic grade.

It's as big as a baseball and other than being a storage unit for mana or other energies, it doesn't have any other effect. What makes it an epic item is the amount of energy it can contain.

The mana stone already has a lot of thermal energy inside of it, yet I continue to store more, and the golden flames lazily swirl inside.

I look around the room, “There are three goals I want to reach.”

Their eyes flick between me and the stone.

“First, store as much energy as I can inside this stone. Two parts thermal, one part kinetic,” without hesitation, I tell them about the Primordial energies I have and ignore the looks of pure shock even Cael gives me.

I need help with this as even now I feel that soon I won't be able to store more. It's either caused by the way I store it, by the item's rarity, or there is something more required. Maybe it's just too much of it; I didn't hold back when I started filling it, unlike the time when I created one to bomb the ants. But that doesn't seem to be it; the stone is of epic rarity, so it should easily handle something like that.

"Second, come up with a mechanism that will release all that energy at once when I want it to, as well as the energies of a few more filled mana stones near it."

Sure, I could start feeding it to the point where it can't hold any more and is about to explode. However, unlike orbs made of mana, I don't have as strong a connection to it and lack that intuitive feeling. It would be unfortunate if the stone exploded somewhere in Obelia's tower and took a good chunk of the city with it.

“Third, there is one of my skills I need to make sure it will work with…” As I continue to explain, they watch me, a childish curiosity replaced by an academic one, and I can see gears in their heads spinning already as they start coming up with solutions and ideas.

All of them quietly listen and let me talk, waiting for a pause to start talking about how they would go about it.

Yup, let's just fake it and pretend I know what I'm talking about as I need their help. Just an orb created by me is not enough. It would be powerful, yes, but not enough.

I will nuke these bitches into oblivion for touching what is mine.

***

I return to the tower late at night, tired as I haven't been in a long time. Not physically but mentally.

Everyone else is already asleep, and I find the quiet of the tower really comfortable as well as the fact that no one will try to talk with me right now as it's deep into the night.

I pull one of the armchairs on the balcony and plop down.

The city is dim, and quiet, yet in the distance, I can see the lights all around the trunk of the Living Tree outside of the city. Lynthari guarding it.

While yawning, I stare at it and think about how I feel about it dying without me doing anything. I reflect on what happened and what I could change, but in the end, I stop thinking and just continue to enjoy the quiet.

As if in revenge against my busy day full of meetings, I do not go to sleep and enjoy the feeling of being alone.

***

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